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| Seniors in the Workplace Five Misconceptions about Older Workers Sometimes our unexamined opinions-also called "mental models"-can get us in trouble. What "everybody knows" can be untrue, even if most people believe it. People who go along with common wisdom can get things wrong, while independent thinkers make great progress. A case in point: Older Workers. Here are five common misconceptions about older workers. 1. Older workers are past their prime. This might be true in some unusual occupations, such as athletes, where the "job" is defined by physical abilities. Most jobs aren't like that, however. Most jobs benefit from competencies such as judgment, maturity, and ability to see the big picture, which are seen more often in older workers than others. In general, successful job incumbents seem more like coaches than athletes, to extend the metaphor. 2. Older workers are at the high end of their pay scales, and present a cost burden. One time an engineering manager said to me "This HR business is all about moving out older employees and bringing in younger, lower-cost ones, right?" Can you imagine that manager saying "I've determined that our managers are paid too highly. We need to get rid of them and bring in some inexperienced, low cost employees." Pay should reflect value of an employee to the company. If your hiring and performance management systems are working, you will have people fairly compensated for their value to the company, no matter what their age. If somebody is at the high end of their pay grade, they probably are providing a good service. 3. Older workers are technologically inflexible. Like any other truism, there is a grain of truth in this. Some older folks do not adapt as quickly to new technology as others. I have a client where one of the owners will not use email consistently. But that dysfunction has gone on for 20 years, and has nothing to do with age-it has to do with the other owners' unwillingness to confront the situation honestly. Older workers may be a bit less adept with new technology on occasion. But on the other hand they are more likely to stay focused on the real business needs and less likely to fall in love with technology just for its own sake. 4. Youth is good, age is bad. Unfortunately, this is a constant message in Western society in advertising, entertainment, marketing, and so forth. This is perhaps the last, unchallenged "ism", like racism, sexism, and religious prejudice. Nearly everybody will agree about the value of diversity. Unfortunately, the role of age, with its maturity, experience and well-roundedness, often does not receive its due. People tend to focus exclusively on the value of racial, gender and ethnic diversity. Age is just as important a component of diversity: maybe more, as it affects everybody. Older workers can bring an indispensible sense of stability, maturity and experience to a workplace. The unquestioning belief that "older" means "bad" can be just as toxic as racially-based or sexually-based prejudice. 5. Older workers are viewed as more costly to provide health care for. There is no doubt that older workers require a higher level of care than younger ones. That's just life, and health care plans account for spreads in age in the workforce. Legally, age cannot be used as a factor in hiring and firing, and that is a good thing. Can you imagine applying a similar sort of discrimination in other areas? For example, can you imagine deciding not to hire people who grew up poor, in single-parent homes, because they required more health care throughout their lives? Health care costs are indeed a concern. But they do not constitute a fair or legal basis for discrimination. - - - Older workers often form the core of an organization. Many Pittsburgh-area companies are blessed with stable workforces and large proportions of stable, very capable older workers. In fact, some companies are envisioning the inevitable mass retirements of the baby boomers, and are taking steps to preserve the core "organizational memories" and skills that will otherwise be walking out the doors. I have seen a significant uptick of these projects as owners and executives are facing their own retirement. These enlightened executives realize the value of older workers and are taking steps to preserve the value they bring to their organizations. Brien Palmer is a principal with InterLINK Management Consulting, a Pittsburgh-area company specializing in organization development at smaller and mid-sized companies. Return to Articles |
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